AFP UK

Fires in Spain’s central Avila province forced hundreds of people to flee their homes Sunday as parts of the country sweltered under crushing temperatures.

The fire, which has been burning in the city Navalcruz since Saturday morning, has been fed by winds of up to 70 kilometres an hour (54 miles per hour) across the Iberian peninsula.

It now has a perimeter of more than 40 kilometres and may already have burned more than 5,000 hectares (12,350 acres), said Jose Angel Arranz, forestry director of the Castilla y Leon region.

The authorities have already evacuated at least 600 people from five towns in the Avila district, near the Sierra de Gredos mountain range, and more than 500 firefighters are tackling the blaze with the help of specialised aircraft.

Around 80 kilometres to the south meanwhile, another fire, near El Raso, was still active. Like the one in Navalcruz, it is rated two on a three-point scale of seriousness.

The emergency services backed by 12 firefighting aircraft have also been fighting a blaze in Azuebar, eastern Spain, since Saturday, which has burned more than 500 hectares, the regional government in Valencia reported.

The blaze is threatening part of the Sierra de Espadan Natural Park.

On Twitter, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sent a message of solidarity to those forced to flee their homes.

– Extreme temperatures –

Spain has been in the grip of a heatwave since Wednesday, and the fires burn as the state meteorological agency (AEMET) recorded what appeared to be record temperatures.

Their provisional data registered a peak of 47.4 degrees Celsius (117.3 Fahrenheit) at around 5 pm (1500 GMT) in the southern city of Cordoba.

That is a tenth of a degree higher than the last record, also recorded there, in July 2017.

“If confirmed, it would be the highest record reliably measured in Spain,” said AEMET spokesman Ruben del Campo. 

Although temperatures are expected to ease in the coming days, several parts of the country, including the southern region of Andalucia Murcia in the southeast, endured temperatures of over 45 degrees Celsius, Del Campo added.

That made this heatwave “probably one of the most intense experienced in Spain”, he said.

Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that manmade global warming will bring higher temperatures and more extreme weather events across the world.

European countries such as Greece and Turkey have already experienced heatwaves and wildfires this summer.

Between 2011 and 2020, Spain registered twice as many heatwaves as in the previous three decades, according to the agency.

In Spain on Sunday, five regions across the country were still on alert over extreme temperatures.

Even in northern Spain, cyclists endured temperatures of up to 31 degrees Celsius as they competed in the second stage of La Vuelta, between Caleruega and Burgos.

Fires in Spain’s central Avila province forced hundreds of people to flee their homes Sunday as parts of the country sweltered under crushing temperatures.

The fire, which has been burning in the city Navalcruz since Saturday morning, has been fed by winds of up to 70 kilometres an hour (54 miles per hour) across the Iberian peninsula.

It now has a perimeter of more than 40 kilometres and may already have burned more than 5,000 hectares (12,350 acres), said Jose Angel Arranz, forestry director of the Castilla y Leon region.

The authorities have already evacuated at least 600 people from five towns in the Avila district, near the Sierra de Gredos mountain range, and more than 500 firefighters are tackling the blaze with the help of specialised aircraft.

Around 80 kilometres to the south meanwhile, another fire, near El Raso, was still active. Like the one in Navalcruz, it is rated two on a three-point scale of seriousness.

The emergency services backed by 12 firefighting aircraft have also been fighting a blaze in Azuebar, eastern Spain, since Saturday, which has burned more than 500 hectares, the regional government in Valencia reported.

The blaze is threatening part of the Sierra de Espadan Natural Park.

On Twitter, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sent a message of solidarity to those forced to flee their homes.

– Extreme temperatures –

Spain has been in the grip of a heatwave since Wednesday, and the fires burn as the state meteorological agency (AEMET) recorded what appeared to be record temperatures.

Their provisional data registered a peak of 47.4 degrees Celsius (117.3 Fahrenheit) at around 5 pm (1500 GMT) in the southern city of Cordoba.

That is a tenth of a degree higher than the last record, also recorded there, in July 2017.

“If confirmed, it would be the highest record reliably measured in Spain,” said AEMET spokesman Ruben del Campo. 

Although temperatures are expected to ease in the coming days, several parts of the country, including the southern region of Andalucia Murcia in the southeast, endured temperatures of over 45 degrees Celsius, Del Campo added.

That made this heatwave “probably one of the most intense experienced in Spain”, he said.

Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that manmade global warming will bring higher temperatures and more extreme weather events across the world.

European countries such as Greece and Turkey have already experienced heatwaves and wildfires this summer.

Between 2011 and 2020, Spain registered twice as many heatwaves as in the previous three decades, according to the agency.

In Spain on Sunday, five regions across the country were still on alert over extreme temperatures.

Even in northern Spain, cyclists endured temperatures of up to 31 degrees Celsius as they competed in the second stage of La Vuelta, between Caleruega and Burgos.

Residents of several villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem were evacuated on Sunday because of a large forest fire nearby, Israeli police said.

Firemen supported by firefighting aircraft were working to extinguish the blaze as the smoke blotted out the sky across much of the city.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office said he had held a special meeting with security officials.

The fire threatened the villages of Beit Meir, Shoeva, Kissalon, Guvat Yearim and Ramat Raziel west of Jerusalem, police said in a statement.

The villages lie close to the main highway linking the city with Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv.

Residents were evacuated and several roads were blocked, the police added.

“This is one of the biggest fires in the Jerusalem area in years,” Nissim Touitou, the region’s fire chief, told a televised news conference.

Earlier, a spokesman for the Jerusalem fire service said strong winds were fanning the flames and called on firefighters from several regions to assist.

A fire that broke out in the same area over a week ago had been quickly brought under control.

The cause of Sunday’s fire was not yet known.

Yitzhak Ravitz, the mayor of Kyriat Yearim near the affected villages, told public radio his “town’s doors are open … to all families needing protection”.

Several other Mediterranean countries have seen forest fires amid soaring temperatures in recent weeks, including Greece, Turkey and Algeria.

Spain saw its highest temperature on record on Saturday as a heatwave on the Iberian peninsula drove the mercury to 47.4 degrees Celsius (117.3 Fahrenheit), according to provisional data from the state meteorological agency.

The temperature peaked around five pm local time in the southern town of Cordoba, the agency said, passing the previous record set at the same measuring station in July 2017 by one-tenth of a degree.

“If confirmed, it would be the highest record reliably measured in Spain,” agency spokesman Ruben del Campo said. 

The intense heat wave hitting Spain continued on Sunday with five regions still on high alert over extreme temperatures.

The heat wave “will probably rank among among the most intense in living memory”, according to the Del Campo newspaper.

The combination of the fierce heat and rise in suspended dust particles has also increased the fire risk, with the country remaining on high alert.

Twelve aircraft were on Sunday deployed to help fight a blaze in Azuebar, a municipality in Valencia, according to the regional government.

The blaze is threating part of the Sierra de Espadan Natural Park.

There were also fires of concern in central Avila province, where several towns have been evacuated.

Between 2011 and 2020, Spain registered twice as many heat waves as in the previous three decades, according to the agency. Scientists consider that this pattern of heat waves is an unequivocal sign of climate change that will only get worse.

Japan braced for further downpours on Sunday as rescuers sifted through flood and landslide damage after record rain that left at least six dead.

Residents returned to check on their mud-covered homes in the country’s southwest, where nearly two million people were urged to seek shelter on Saturday as dozens of rivers overflowed.

Showers eased in the hard-hit region on Sunday, with the weather agency downgrading alerts from the top level, but more rain was expected from the evening.

“It is still possible that extreme, severe rain will continue in many areas across the nation,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said at an emergency cabinet meeting.

“Because it has been raining so much, ground soil in many areas is becoming looser, and large-scale disasters could happen at any time,” he said, advising residents to exercise caution and stay in shelters.

Scientists say climate change is intensifying the risk of heavy rain in Japan and elsewhere, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water.

The Japan Meteorological Agency has called the recent rainfall levels “unprecedented”.

Just over one metre (three feet) of rain was seen over four days in Ureshino, a town in Saga prefecture. The same town recorded 3.3 metres of rain in the whole of 2020, and 2.3 metres in 2019.

Two women in their 70s were confirmed dead after they were found in a drainage canal, Hironori Fujiki, a Saikai city official in Nagasaki prefecture, told AFP.

It came after a 59-year-old woman died in a landslide that swept away her house in Unzen, Nagasaki, on Friday. Rescue workers were still combing the wreckage for two of her family members.

Landslide warnings have been issued in 372 municipalities across Japan after 44 were detected — a quarter of them in Nagasaki — the land ministry said.

In the Nagano region of central Japan, a 41-year-old woman and her two sons, aged 12 and 7, died in a landslide, a local official told AFP.

An elderly resident of Kanzaki in Saga told public broadcaster NHK about a landslide she witnessed that had no casualties.

“So many logs tumbled down and crashed into this area” from nearby mountains, she said. “It was so, so scary… you absolutely have to leave when it rains.”

Strong rain last month caused a devastating wave of landslides in the central resort town of Atami that killed 23 people, with four still missing.

And in 2018, floods and landslides killed more than 200 people in western Japan during the country’s annual rainy season.

A panda bred via artificial insemination was born in Singapore’s zoo on Saturday, the first cub to be born in the city-state.

Jia Jia, the zoo’s 12-year-old female giant panda, gave birth to the cub after she was inseminated with frozen semen from 13-year-old Kai Kai, Wildlife Reserves Singapore announced on Sunday.

After several failed attempts in previous years, the zoo’s animal carers — working with experts from China — hoped the pandas would mate naturally but ultimately decided to use artificial insemination.

“Jia Jia’s first pregnancy and birth of a cub is a significant milestone for us in the care of this threatened species in Singapore,” said Cheng Wen-Haur, Wildlife Reserves Singapore’s deputy CEO, in a press release.

“This is the result of good animal care, assisted reproductive science and sheer perseverance on the part of our staff coupled with valuable advice from the China panda experts.”

The pandas are on a 10-year loan from China and arrived in Singapore in 2012.

Panda reproduction — in captivity or in the wild — is notoriously difficult, experts say, as few of the animals get in the mood or, even when they do, do not know how to mate.

Further complicating matters, the window for conception is small since female pandas are in heat only once a year, for about 24-48 hours.

The giant panda is listed as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with fewer than 2,000 thought to remain in the wild.

The grass flickered gently above a crack in the limestone and Ludvik Husu instinctively knew he had found what he was searching for: a new cave in Slovenia’s dramatic Karst region.

The seasoned cave enthusiast, with more than 50 years’ experience, told AFP that “the conditions were perfect… all the signs pointed to something beneath” as he felt the air current push up from below.

The 63-year-old had come across a new, 60-metre (196-foot) deep limestone cave, a discovery that made the headlines this summer in a country that prides itself in its 14,000 underground grottoes. 

The tiny Alpine nation is unusually rich in caves, which are a major tourist attraction. One even houses an entire castle and another was used by the European Space Agency to help train astronauts.

– Biological treasure trove –

Perhaps best known is the Postojna cave system, the longest in Europe, unearthed by another amateur enthusiast two centuries ago.

When local lamplighter Luka Cec decided to explore a hidden crack while scouting out the Postojna area for a visit by Austrian Emperor Franz, he is reputed to have said that he had stumbled on “a new world… a paradise!”

The Postojna system extends for 24 kilometres (15 miles) and has offered up valuable finds for biologists.

Stanislav Glazar, a Postojna cave guide and speleology enthusiast, told AFP that more than 150 species have been discovered in the system.

Among them is the Proteus anguinus or “little dragon”, an ancient aquatic salamander that can live up to 100 years and was previously considered living proof that dragons had once existed.

A cave-dwelling beetle -– the slender neck beetle or Leptodirus hochenwartii — was also found here, reputedly by Cec.

Glazar sid Postojna is one of the richest caves in the world “in limestone formations, with a dense concentration of stalactites, columns, pillars”.

The cave, situated some 50 kilometres south of the capital Ljubljana, was also home to the world’s first cave tourist train, which began transporting visitors in 1872.

– ‘No fear!’ –

Elsewhere in the Karst region, the cave systems are of historical, cultural and even extraterrestrial interest.

The dramatic, medieval Predjama castle was built in a cave mouth to make access difficult and to provide an escape route through a shaft in the rock face.

The Vilenica cave, which Slovenes have been exploring since 1633, is known for the annual eponymous literary prize awarded in its interior.

And the UNESCO-listed Skocjan system was where the European Space Agency sent some astronauts to prepare for life in space.

“Astronauts know that the Karst world is exceptional, in a similar way to the environment in space: you don’t know what to expect at your next step,” said Skocjan Caves supervisor Tomaz Zorman. 

But for Husu, it’s the hunt which proves most rewarding.

The “ideal time for cave searching is the winter” when the air above ground is cooler than that in the caves.

Once he knows there is something beneath, he digs around the crack to widen it and alerts fellow cavers to help gain access.

He then uses ropes and a lamp to descend into what are vertical entrances in most caves, known as “chimneys”.

But doesn’t he feel any trepidation at entering such unexplored depths?

“You enter a cave out of curiosity, there is no fear! Those who feel fear should stay home,” he said.

Japan braced for further downpours on Sunday as rescuers sifted through flood and landslide damage after record rain that left at least three dead.

Residents returned to check on their mud-covered homes in the southwest, where nearly two million people were advised to urgently seek shelter Saturday as rivers overflowed.

“So many logs tumbled down and crashed into this area” from nearby mountains, an elderly resident of Kanzaki in Saga prefecture told public broadcaster NHK.

“It was so, so scary,” she said. “You absolutely have to leave when it rains.”

More than a metre (three feet) of rain has been recorded since Wednesday in the northern part of Kyushu, one of the places hardest hit by a band of intense wet weather stretching across Japan.

Showers had eased in the region on Sunday, with the weather agency downgrading alerts from the top level, but more rain was expected from the evening.

“We have not started to survey human or property damage on a full scale,” said Hironori Fujiki, a city official in Kyushu’s Nagasaki prefecture.

“We have yet to see an entire picture of the disaster,” he told AFP.

Two women in their 70s were confirmed dead after they were found in a drainage canal, Fujiki said.

It came after a 59-year-old woman died in a landslide that swept away her house in Unzen, Nagasaki, on Friday.

Rescue workers are still combing the wreckage for two of her family members.

Images showed aviation teams in Saga winching people to safety from homes surrounded by muddy water.

Landslides were also seen in other parts of Japan, with three people including a child under 10 feared dead after a family home was engulfed in central Nagano region, a local official told AFP on Sunday.

Scientists say climate change is intensifying the risk of heavy rain in Japan and elsewhere, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water.

Strong rain last month caused a devastating landslide in the central resort town of Atami that killed 23 people, with four still missing.

And in 2018, floods and landslides killed more than 200 people in western Japan during the country’s annual rainy season.

Ryuta Kurora, director of forecasts at Japan’s weather agency, warned that the record rainfall will have loosened the soil in some areas.

“We ask residents to continue to exercise serious caution for landslides,” he said in a televised press briefing.

Turkey battled disaster on two fronts on Saturday with eight people dying when a fire-fighting aircraft crashed and rescuers racing to find survivors of flash floods in the north that have killed at least 55.

Ankara and Moscow announced that all eight people on the Russian plane had perished on the fire-fighting mission.

The air tragedy came just as Turkey was gaining control of hundreds of wildfires that killed eight people and destroyed swathes of forest along the scenic southern coast.

Scientists believe such natural disasters are becoming more intense and frequent because of global warming caused by polluting emissions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erodgan saying “the pain of this loss unites us”.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu added: “Condolences to our nation and to the Russian people. This heroic sacrifice will not be forgotten.”

In Moscow,  the defence ministry said five Russian servicemen and three Turkish citizens were on board the Russian Be-200 plane that went down around 1330 GMT.

Television footage showed a column of smoke rising from the remote mountainous zone in Turkey’s south.

Turkey’s defence ministry issued a statement saying the aircraft on loan from Russia had taken off from Adana to help extinguish fires burning in Kahramanmaras province.

A surveillance plane and a helicopter had been dispatched to the crash site, the ministry added.

Russian consular representatives and a defense ministry commission were reportedly on their way to the area.

– Combing rubble for survivors –

on the floods front the official disaster agency AFAD said teams were combing through the rubble of dozens of homes that collapsed due to the floods that hit Black Sea regions on Wednesday after heavy rains.

In the village of Babacay in the northern province of Sinop, 40 houses and two bridges were completely destroyed by the floods, according to state news agency Anadolu.

The latest official death toll published Saturday by AFAD stood at 55, with nine other people in hospital.

Turkey’s emergence as a frontline country in the battle against climate change also poses a challenge to  Erdogan two years before the next scheduled general election.

As the initial shock of the floods faded, so questions and criticisms arose.

Floods survivors accused local authorities of not giving them proper warning about the dangers of incoming storms.

Criticism has also been levelled at the fact several buildings were built in flood zones.

In Bozkurt in Kastamonu province, one eight-storey building constructed on the banks of the Ezine river collapsed.

Footage shot by survivors showed furious river waters flooding the streets in just a few minutes, carrying off cars and traffic signs.

The government — which did not adopt the 2015 Paris climate accord — has denied that the sudden rise in water levels was linked to a hydro-electric power station further up the river. Media had reported a water-retention dam may have ruptured.

Turkey battled disaster on two fronts on Saturday with eight people dying when a fire-fighting aircraft crashed and rescuers racing to find survivors of flash floods in the north that have killed at least 55.

Ankara and Moscow announced that all eight people on the Russian plane had perished on the fire-fighting mission.

The air tragedy came just as Turkey was gaining control of hundreds of wildfires that killed eight people and destroyed swathes of forest along the scenic southern coast.

Scientists believe such natural disasters are becoming more intense and frequent because of global warming caused by polluting emissions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erodgan saying “the pain of this loss unites us”.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu added: “Condolences to our nation and to the Russian people. This heroic sacrifice will not be forgotten.”

In Moscow,  the defence ministry said five Russian servicemen and three Turkish citizens were on board the Russian Be-200 plane that went down around 1330 GMT.

Television footage showed a column of smoke rising from the remote mountainous zone in Turkey’s south.

Turkey’s defence ministry issued a statement saying the aircraft on loan from Russia had taken off from Adana to help extinguish fires burning in Kahramanmaras province.

A surveillance plane and a helicopter had been dispatched to the crash site, the ministry added.

Russian consular representatives and a defense ministry commission were reportedly on their way to the area.

– Combing rubble for survivors –

on the floods front the official disaster agency AFAD said teams were combing through the rubble of dozens of homes that collapsed due to the floods that hit Black Sea regions on Wednesday after heavy rains.

In the village of Babacay in the northern province of Sinop, 40 houses and two bridges were completely destroyed by the floods, according to state news agency Anadolu.

The latest official death toll published Saturday by AFAD stood at 55, with nine other people in hospital.

Scientists believe such natural disasters are becoming more intense and frequent because of global warming caused by polluting emissions.

Turkey’s emergence as a frontline country in the battle against climate change also poses a challenge to  Erdogan two years before the next scheduled general election.

As the initial shock of the floods faded, so questions and criticisms arose.

Floods survivors accused local authorities of not giving them proper warning about the dangers of incoming storms.

Criticism has also been levelled at the fact several buildings were built in flood zones.

In Bozkurt in Kastamonu province, one eight-storey building constructed on the banks of the Ezine river collapsed.

Footage shot by survivors showed furious river waters flooding the streets in just a few minutes, carrying off cars and traffic signs.

The government — which did not adopt the 2015 Paris climate accord — has denied that the sudden rise in water levels was linked to a hydro-electric power station further up the river. Media had reported a water-retention dam may have ruptured.